#sunsetarmssecretsanta

It’s five minutes after midnight and I’m racing with all the ferocity in my form to the twinkling heart of Hillwood, that giant obnoxious grand fir, all ninety tinsel and light decorated feet of it, savagely berating my own foolishness for the anxious anticipation in the fluttering cage of my heart.

Really, Helga, you’re being stupid.

Some facts to consider as I pound boot to the shitty three inches of snow the sky has seen fit to noncommittally dust over the sidewalks:

1. You made this silly, saccharine, sentimental promise with that football-headed moron six years ago, and he has definitely forgotten it, 2. Arnold hasn't even been in Hillwood in over a year, there’s next to zero chance he’s made the seven thousand mile trip home for some silly teenage vow, 3. You really don't have to be so fucking literal about “Meet me on Christmas Day at the Big Christmas Tree when we’re grown up,” you’re twenty, that’s not a grown up, and you don't have to be there for the literal full 24 hours of Christmas Day.

And yet it seems I, in total disregard of logic and reason, find myself the vicious victim of my own obsession, and I currently hate myself a little tiny bit more than usual for almost sleeping through the start of Christmas and missing it. You know it’s funny, I couldn't sleep last night at all, my hands couldn't stop fidgeting with anything within reach, and I must have wrapped and re-wrapped Arnold’s gift like six times. Christmas Eve Eve was bananas. I wore a circular spot on my bedroom rug where I paced like a madwoman, circling the ribbon I was going to wear today with skepticism and dread, absolutely sure I was being far too nostalgic and sappy to think to wear the old thing but damn sure I was going to anyway.

I arrive, seven minutes after midnight, the first few moments of Christmas Day already gone. Of course I’m late, I cannot do anything I intend correctly when it comes to Arnold. Never could. This is merely one more little fuckup in a litany of fuckups that put any Wagnerian Epic to shame. If I wrote down all the things I ever did to fuck up in regards to Arnold, well. I’d actually have the note I have clutched to my chest in my jacket. Turns out I decided, in my infinite stupidity, to confess my feelings by means of a few grandiose gestures. They are, to provide a second list for consideration:

1. To spend the entirety of Christmas Day at the Hillwood Christmas Tree, in the center of town where everyone can see me, all 24 miserable hours of it, every Christmas since we turned 20, to fulfill our childhood promise to meet him there at that time, 2. To confess to Arnold with a handwritten note detailing the exact scope and gravity of my affections for him, 3. To additionally, by means of said foolish missive, apologize for the expansive, seemingly endless sins I have committed against his beatific person as I struggled with the aforementioned affections, and finally, 4. Beg him to date me like a penitent worm, even though the sins mentioned in item 3 preclude EVER making such a foolish and haughty request.

Yeah, I’m gonna fuck this up. This is already obvious to me, as I consider these lists of things, sucking the freezing, wet air of this snowy Christmas morning into my lungs with desperate greed, all efforts of physical urgency expended. Running here in a dead sprint because I was running late was a shitty idea. Forgetting my backpack was an even worse one. It had all my planned essentials, to get me through what was definitely going to be a long, lonely, shitty Christmas Day of disappointments and misery. Leaving it on the kitchen table, all packed and ready to go, in my hasty dash out the door was a last minute non-decision my panicked mind made while I tried to push the Earth beneath my feet away, dashing as fast as I could to here, the still quiet around the Christmas Tree. Alone! In the cold!

Forgetting the backpack was a deadly mistake, I realize, as I appraise the still calm around the big decorated fir tree, recognizing that I am indeed alone here. No Arnold, that's for sure. Just a lot of nobody, wet snow, and Helga, no doubt pink of cheek and dewy-eyed as I gape and search for some sign of him in vain.

Of course he was not there.

Expecting him was a mistake, see points 1 and 2 of the first list. We’ll call that one list A, and the second list, list B. The contents of List A are what dominate my nervous thoughts as I walk the entire circumference of the grand fir that stands alone in the city square, peeking around the various blind spots of building corners and alleyways that feed into Hillwood’s mostly centralized point. No fresh footprints in the wet, loose snow except for mine. Nobody else has been here for at least since the snow started half an hour ago. It’s not surprising, in this day and age you can't find saps like me who would spend a whole day at a stupid tree to see some boy.

With confirmation that I didn't miss him by being seven minutes late - really, I had to confirm this or risk insanity - I am able to calm my immediate panic to a mere mild nervous dread. So he’s not here and I wasn’t actually late to see him. This is information I can process as I catch my breath, and scan around to find the best spot to wait for him. I need a good vantage point. Lots of visibility, and as few points of line of sight blocked by the tree as possible. If he shows up he needs to see me easily, or me him, or we risk circling the tree in some tidal orbit of one another. This damn fir tree is too damn big, and it takes me ages to decide.

The spot I finally settle on is a bench beneath a lamp post. Light shines down on me, illuminating the obnoxious magenta pink of the bow tied into my hair. The pale yellow light cascades down the particular liquid shimmer of clear gold of my long blond ponytails. It shines down on the thick pastel pink cable knit sweater I chose, cowl neck, with a knitted ruff down the front, and it shows every stray blonde hair shining on the stark black of my wool-lined jeans, chosen half for comfort and half for style. My Doc Martins peek up at me from the bottom of the skinny black jeans, studded with teenage steel and well-worn. Lotta miles on those babies.

I look at my hands, bright pink from the freezing temperatures, and remember that my mittens are in my backpack. So is my black beanie, also knitted. Time to inventory what I did bring:

1. iPhone. At least I remembered this key piece so I wouldn't be stranded out here like an idiot, 2. Letters. I've written Arnold untold dozens of love letters over the years, but these are the big ones. The ones I hand deliver, assuming he shows up, 3. The ribbon I wore as a kid, previously mentioned as being worn.

That's it. No supplies, no heavy coat, no chargers and portable batteries. I've got 97% battery life in my phone and a whole lot of time to try to occupy. No food or snacks either, and all my energy shots are in the backpack, with the bottles of water and hand warmers.

No way you look at it, the whole fucking thing has gone pear shaped. Might as well pack up now! Here I am, wet from this half assed snow, freezing my glorious tits off, and all in the hope I get to show said glorious tits to the very boy who I know will not make an appearance, despite my hoping.

Gotta give up. Gotta stop this ridiculous vigil while I'm only an hour in, shivering and miserable and pissed at myself for getting it all wrong yet again. No use in belaboring the painful and the inevitable.

I waste 3% battery while I stare at my timetables and planned inventory checklist on my phone, all made well in advance to prevent this exact scenario. Just beautiful, Helga. Perfect.

I could text Pheebs. It's one in the morning now, give or take, so, she’s probably still awake and studying. Harvard’s not that far of a drive to my place, only an hour or so, maybe she wouldn't mind hauling my forgotten lifeline to me while I wait out here pathetically.

I wear a circle of worry in the snow pacing around the bench I have chosen as my roost debating to text her or not. I decided I would do this thing on my own, under my own efforts, so I ought to stick to that and see this through. I need to see something through for once in my life. If I lean on Phoebe now, like always, won’t that just be more of the same? How will I break the pattern of my stupid, stupid abuses to Arnold if I am just repeating all my other bad habits? Having my best friend bail me out all the time?

But it’s so cold. My teeth are chittering and I am in a full body shiver when the snow slows down to a gentle flurry, the air temperature dropping low enough to suspend the latent moisture into a frigid fog around the tree. The ghostly lanterns and lights that string around the grand fir glow like gravelights among the soft white fog that blankets the city square. I would find the whole scene beautiful if it wasn’t a very bad sign for my actual survival.

Fuck it, it’s just a backpack, I need it if I’m going to make it through this without hypothermia and chilblains. I’ve got Phoebe’s number pulled up, but my stupid thumb is too cold to respond to my brain telling it to dial her up, and I’m standing there shivering like a dying idiot when I hear the car pull up.

Instantly, my world is alight with fire and heat and fear. I literally drop my phone into the snow, forgetting it instantly, because someone is here and my god, it could be him. I’m spinning in place like a lost fool, almost as if I’ve lost all sense of direction, scanning the large city square for what I know was the crinkle and crunch of snow tires on ice. I see it, and my heart first pounds against my ribs, and then skips, and almost stops. A hot frothy mixture of disgust, confusion, and disappointment churns in my belly and the tint on my cheeks is more shame based than cold.

It’s…

My sister’s Volvo.

Olga steps out of her car, wrapped up in her huge Gore Tex parka, fur-lined hood and everything. I’m trying to figure out what in the hell she’s doing standing there smiling at me all knowingly, accusingly like that for, when she lifts up the very thing I’d been about to call Phoebe begging for her to bring to me. My backpack. And she lifts my heavy parka up with her other hand and gives me the kind of shitty triumphant smile, all one billion watts of it, and I am shaking with relief and embarrassment and vexation.

Vexed. I am vexed.

“I thought you might forget your things, dear baby sister,” she calls out, hip-bumping her car door shut. She’s in her designer jeans and that ridiculous parka. Her snow boots crunch the slick powder beneath them as she approaches, holding my things out for me. “Mommy and Daddy would be very concerned to know their precious daughter is out in the freezing cold without her parka.”

While that is 100% bullshit and I know for a fact my folks don't even know I have a Parka, much less display any parental concern for my lack of one, I actually have bigger fish to fry than my sister’s flights of natal fantasy.

“How the hell did you, uh, know I was here?” I demand, sliding my parka onto my shivering sleeves begrudgingly.

“You left your...itinerary, I suppose? Anyway you left it, hum, out.” She says.

“That was in my room!”

“Well, uh, when you left in such a rush at ten till midnight I naturally had some questions.”

“So you go snooping in my room?” I snatch my backpack from her, and fish the mittens and beanie out to hastily pull them on. I instantly start to feel better.

“No, uh, first I opened your backpack to make heads or tails of why it was stuffed so profoundly and in the kitchen. When that revealed a few, uh, clues, I resolved myself to find answers.”

I’m actually so vividly angry that it feels giddy. My privacy has always been a matter up for debate with Olga, but this feels especially intrusive and heinous. And if I wasn't definitely going to get pneumonia if she hadn't violated my sacrosanct wall of secrecy, I would have decked her. Betsy would have left her with the need for new teeth from old Saint Nicholas.

Instead I am bewilderingly touched by the thoughtfulness and generosity of my sister on a day when typically I get none. Sure, she violated my privacy and went through my things, but, she also did it because she was worried. I hesitate to say anything as I clap my hands together in their mittens to summon up some warmth in my fingers, eying her appraisingly. Olga is leering at me with that schmaltzy false benevolence she loves to affect, but for some stupid reason - chalk it up to Christmas sentimentality, I guess - I am touched.

“Thanks, Olga,” I finally offer. It’s the least I can do, I decide, to show my appreciation for saving me a few miserable freezing hours while I wait for the inevitable.

“Of course, baby sister!” she almost shouts, and she hits me with one of her trademark medically perfect smiles that I loathe. Before I know it she has her arms questing to grab me and I only groan and protest a little bit less than normally when she cinches me in a big hug. I guess that feels nice.

“Alright, alright, enough with the mushy shit,” I protest, pushing her off me with a gruff noise. “That’s enough Christmas cheer for one year.”

“Teehee,” she literally says ‘Teehee,’ I shit you not. “Well, uh, if there’s anything you need while you wait for this boy, just give me a ring. Except between six and ten, I’ll be cooking. Daddy wants to unwrap presents before the game.”

“Thanks, but I won't call.” I don't even ask why or how she knows I’m here for a boy. The fact that she’s read my diaries before is not a matter of debate but unspoken fact. Though it disgusts me, Olga’s been aware of my obsession with Arnold for a long time.

“Well. Merry Christmas, Helga. I’ll leave your present on your bed for you. You can unwrap it tomorrow. I almost brought it? But uh, I just, hmm. Thought it would be better to unwrap it at home.”

“Fine, sure, whatever, just go. I’m busy here.”

“Naturally! Okay baby sister, stay warm. See you soon! Buh-bye!”

The grimace I'm wearing as she closes her door and starts her engines is genuine. She knows I hate when she says ‘Buh-bye,’ like this big production of ‘bye-bye’ or even just simply ‘bye’ which is perfectly serviceable as a farewell if you ask me.

The car’s scarlet rear lights diminish into the downy fog and snow of the early morning flurry, and I watch it go the whole way, feeling...warmed. Must be the extra gear, because I sure as shit ain’t waxing sentimental over my stupid big sister’s gallant gesture. I wipe some misty nonsense from the corners of my eyes - must be snow - and set my jaw.

Okay. Crisis averted. The second of what will surely be many in my ridiculous scheme. But the only problem is now that the immediate question of my basic survival is solved, I am afforded the ample time I have before me to regard the difficulty of my task.

I sit back down on the bench after swiping the impression my butt left on it previously clear of the fresh snow. My backpack is torn open, and I fish out an energy shot right from the top. That sucker goes down bitter and fast, and leaves an acrid aftertaste that I’ll never get used to, but it buys me important time. I can’t fall asleep out here, lulled by the cold and the dark and the seclusion into dreaming. I might miss him.

My earbuds are next, They come out, slide into my phone, and get tucked into my ears beneath the black wool beanie. For good measure I lift up the faux fur-lined hood of my parka over my head as well. No use in letting all that go to waste. I open my playlist for this foolish excursion, chosen carefully and frankly too long to list. It’s a lot of Tori Amos and Kate Bush, let’s just leave it at that.

The first song begins filling my world with noise. The absolute dead silence of the central quarter, here near two in the morning on Christmas day, has a ghostly quality when filled with the music I’ve chosen. It’s somehow more isolating to have the piercing quiet of outside shut out, so I tuck my legs up against my chest and hug them for both warmth and comfort.

Well, here I am. Time to wait.

Waiting is never easy for me, I have active muscles and limbs. I’m probably ADHD or some shit, or so says Dr. Bliss. So I am physically forcing myself to sit in one spot and wait, almost motionless while the snow slowly and politely gathers on my head, shoulders, arms, and knees. I shake it off from time to time, letting my music pass through my ears while I sit and consider the cold, and try to do as little thinking about Arnold as I can. That’s never an easy task, and never has been, but tonight it’s especially difficult. He’s why I’m out here doing this stupid shit anyway.

About an hour into this my phone chirps with an alert. Phoebe texting. I naturally reply quickly, my fingers mostly still warm.

[Good morning and Merry Christmas, Helga! How is the wait?] [terrible. merry xmas.]

[Oh no! I am sorry to hear that! Is there anything I can do to help?]

[talk me out of this?]

[I sincerely doubt I could ever accomplish such a thing.]

[yah i thought so]

[I was just about to retire for the evening momentarily. However I don’t mind coming to help?]

[nah no need. 4got my bckpck earlier but olga brought it]

[Olga? How unexpected. Well, if there’s anything, just give me a call. I’ll definitely support you anyway that I can!]

[thnx pheebs. luv u <3]

[I love you, too Helga! If I don’t hear from you I’ll swing by when my family has finished their early morning Christmas breakfast. See you soon!]

Sweet Phoebe. She’s never let me down. I’ll hand deliver her present tomorrow, assuming I’m not passed out and asleep by then. Ideally, once this charade is over I can go home and collapse, but I know there’s a dozen things I have to get done that won’t get done if I don’t do them then. Another little thing to look forward to.

My legs are stiff, so I get up to walk around and warm up a bit. A few circuits of the tree should wake my legs up. It’s getting obvious to me now that this is probably going to go down in one of four ways:

1. Arnold never shows; this is by far the most likely, 2. Arnold shows up much later in about eighteen hours, in the late evening; seems to be the second most likely 3. Arnold shows up first thing in the morning once the sun rises; this is a distant third place, and, finally, 4. Arnold blunders through here by chance because he happens to be in town and happened to walk by and decides to check out the tree for nostalgia’s sake, having long forgotten the promise he made.

On second thought that fourth one should probably be number two. Just make a mental note of that, and we can move on without too much bullshit.

I pace the courtyard alone in the silence of Christmas morning for hours. It takes the sun forever to finally rise, bringing the first rosy fingers of dawn over the skyline and filling the air with the scent of Christmas morning cinnamon rolls from the houses all around. I should be in bed, just cozy as anything, dreaming of Arnold before I wake up to Bob’s big Christmas plate of never ending bacon. I should not be out here, freezing my toes in my boots.

I eventually return to my bench once the first few folk with nothing else to do but surprise the hell out of me and disappoint me utterly begin to filter through the main square. I guess some folks got up early just like I thought they would, mostly young couples and solitary old men. A few even wave hello to me as they pass, though I’m sure my Scroogelike scowl is as hardly the greeting they were expecting.

None of them are Arnold. Cross number three, previously two, off the list. I spend some time alternating between harvesting shinies in my Pokémon game and eating my power bars while the early crowd wastes my damn time and files through like slack jawed zombies gawking at the huge grand fir. Yeah, it's a pretty amazing tree, and gorgeously decked, but I’ve been sitting in front of it for several hours now and don't care to smell fresh pine ever again.

Sometime around my fifth time around the tree, Phoebe strolls into view. She waves enthusiastically at me, hands in some cute mittens, and trots the short distance to where I’m standing beneath the street light.

“Merry Christmas, Helga,” she says, and hands me a small wrapped box. Naturally, I’m touched. Phoebe never forgets birthdays or anniversaries or holidays, stuff like that gets scheduled weeks in advance with her. She always gives extremely tasteful gifts.

“Merry Christmas, Phoebe,” I smile back at her, and fish her gift from my backpack. It's a thin, long box. It rattles tellingly when she shakes it against her dainty ear, and her thin almond shaped eyes twinkle when she hears it. I love my best friend so much.

“Helga, you didn't,” she gasps, and starts tearing into her present as I am slowly unwrapping mine. When the paper is torn off the small black box, she slows down and runs her fingers along the silver piping. I did.

She clicks open the jewelry box and her new watch glitters up at her, sterling silver and exactly her taste. I used to be a pretty selfish shopper for my friends but a certain Football-headed someone taught me the special miraculous joy of getting a loved on something truly special. I guess I took it to heart.

She is silent gratitude as she slips it onto her thin wrist, and turns it in the light to watch the sun catch every little detail. “Helga, it’s lovely. It’s so beautiful, thank you, thank you so much! I love you!” And she snags me in a surprisingly crushing hug that leaves me gagging for air.

“Enough! Enough, you’re welcome! I love you too! Air! Oxygen!” I squawk playfully as she cinches my belly tight.

“Oh, Helga, don’t, uh, don’t even open your gift. Mine isn't nearly as thoughtful! I was in a hurry and saw it and it made me reminisce fondly of you, and,” she’s talking too fast to follow, so I shush her with a hand wave and keep opening my smaller box.

“Shush, shush, you always knock it out of the park, don’t fret so much Pheebs.” My fingers pray the small box open. I gasp with surprise, a genuine sound that comes out of me before I’m ready for it. My eyes twinkling, a stupid, stupid grin creasing my face, I pull a small Christmas tree ornament out of the box by a pink ribbon. It’s a little brass football.

“Phoebe,” I whisper, shaking my head once and blinking back stupid, stupid tears.

“Is it too little? It’s too little. I’ll exchange it, I have backup gifts, I’m sorry,” she is stammering, and reaches for the little ornament, but I pull my hand back and shake my head.

“It’s perfect. I love it. Oh,” I click my tongue and lean over to pull her head into a hug. “Thank you, Phoebe. I love it. I love it!”

She’s giggling in my neck and I am squeezing her head. At least one football-shaped object will visit me tonight. It’s Phoebe’s private way of showing me support. She’s always been so discreet about the whole Arnold thing, and this is no different.

“I’m glad you enjoy it, Helga! I was worried it was too...uh, well, not enough. You have other gifts, by the way. Seven of them. They’re at my house, though, so you have to promise to make a short visit to open them.”

“Seven? Nice. You did too much, as always. I promise, I’ll swing by.”

“I’d estimate we are perfectly even,” she grins, holding her glittering watch up to the light. “However I hope you’ll appreciate the rest of your gifts as much as my little lucky charm.”

I scoff. “I’ll need all the luck you can shake up.”

“He’ll come,” she says, and it’s the only time she has to say it. I know she’s wrong, but I love her for saying it just the same.

“Well, even if he doesn’t, I’ve got this clever little ornament to keep him close. Here, I’m gonna hang it on the tree where I can see it.”

“On the tree? Helga, that’s not a public tree to be decorated, I don’t think you should.” “Oh it’s no biggie. There’s thousands of ornaments on this thing anyway, who would even notice?” Only me, hopefully. I hang it on a branch at about chest level in a bare spot, angled where I can see it clearly from my bench. I can’t help but smile at the tasteful little detail of the pink ribbon.

Phoebe’s boots crunch the snow behind me until she’s standing next  to me. “I should go. Papa’s got a schedule.” I turn to smile at her because I knew her trip would be short, but it still meant the world to me. I can’t imagine getting through this stretch without her. My whole body is exhausted and screams for sleep, but, my best friend visited me on my silly vigil on Christmas day, and I’m happy.

“Yeah well, don’t let me keep you. I know how your dad gets. Family, right?” My helpless shrug communicates to my best friend that I can’t really relate to her situation, but I empathize with her just the same.

We share one more brief hug before she drives away, leaving me and the warm memory of her visit to stand in the courtyard with the few couples and groups still milling about. I check my phone, it’s just before lunch time. I ought to eat something again, so I drift to my bench and fish through my backpack for another energy bar. One of my letters falls out into the snow, so I bend over to pick it up, my eyes roving over the scenery briefly before I lean all the way over.

Blonde.

I bolt upright, heart in my throat because I swear I just saw a head of hair that has to be his. It’s the color of spun gold, the color of the rays of the sun, the gold of the harp of Apollo; it’s a color I’ve dreamed of me whole life, the color of daydreams and promises of a better tomorrow; it’s the color of hope and stupid, stupid wishes. It’s Arnold’s hair. I’d know it anywhere.

My backpack is forgotten in the snow and I am sprinting to the spot I think I saw that flash of gold, briefly. My pulse is so loud in my ears and it’s hammering it’s him, it’s him, it’s him like the beat of tribal drums, and I feel every freezing gulp of air as I gasp in my dead sprint across the courtyard in the wet, soft snow. I can’t even blink, my eyes are locked onto that exact spot, because it’s him. It’s him, he came, it’s him!

Only it isn’t him.

I spend half an hour turning every corner and circling the blocks that he could have gone down, looking in every store and shop that’s open, and doubling back twice to the tree. I check everywhere I can think he might have gone without leaving the main square, and head back to my bench to try to see if it was a trick of the light or something else I was seeing from that angle twice. It’s no good. He’s not there. Maybe it was him, it probably wasn’t, but even if it was, he’s gone.

Of course it wasn’t him.

I laugh so hard at my own stupidity, hands holding my face while I sit wretched and alone on my bench, that I actually cry hot angry tears into the palms of my mittens. Naturally, I’m stupid, and it was stupid to think it could have been him. Why would it be him? Why would it ever be him? Life isn’t a fairytale, and happy endings don’t exist. I’m naturally going to come to this stupid tree every year for the rest of my life for this idiotic promise, and he’ll never show except by some stupid chance. Not for any promise we made.

The rest of the day passes, and even though I spent a good hour mentally chastising myself for my naivete, that slightest possible chance it could have been him has me on an exhausting high-alert vigil for the rest of the night. Every person that walks through the square by the tree sends my heart jumping and skipping in the exact frequency of his laughter. I have dozens of false alerts, none of them even close, but the tricky thing about expectation and obsession is that you always see the best possible scenario before the worst thing, the truth, kicks you in the ass. I get kicked in the ass by the truth dozens of times, until the sun sets, the major crowds of last-minute shoppers filter through, and the last few lingering couples and lovers have thinned out.

Eventually, it’s just me again. Me and the football ornament that Phoebe so thoughtfully gave me, my little lucky charm that will come to nothing. I almost leave, I actually decide that this was absolutely a fool’s errand and I’ve spent enough Christmas here, and I have my backpack on my shoulders, and I’m walking out of the square with a lead lump in my guts before the lightning panic of what if he just showed up and I missed it lances through me, and I full sprint back to my spot.

Empty, of course. Sighing, I set my backpack down and try to play some games, then read some manga, anything to keep my mind occupied. The dinner crowds are in the square before I know it, ogling the tree and the lights and feeling cozy and romantic and happy and loved, and I watch them all, make note of their faces. They all seem so distant, like I’m watching them through a screen. I half wish they were all sepia-toned, because it would make the scenery somewhat nostalgic. Instead it all seems…

Bitter.

I decide to wait the last four hours out in silence, just sitting with my hands in my parka pockets on my bench in relative quiet. The only sounds I make while I mutely watch the one or two couples that occasionally drift in is the odd sniff of my nose. I’ve been outside for twenty hours, so I’m sure my sinuses are going to be raw and angry when I finally get indoors. I’ll probably catch a cold. At the very least I’ll enjoy the hot bath waiting for me after I make my rounds at the Hyerdhals.

The last hours go quicker than I’d have expected, but the last hour drags forever. I’m on high alert, of course, just a nervous wreck while I sit there alone in the absolute quiet of the last hour of Christmas. I decide to do one last big circuit around the tree, checking all the spots I’d checked dozens of times that day, keeping it slow while I go around the big grand fir three more times. I walk by my own footprints, staring down at the obvious evidence that I’ve been obsessively watching out for a boy who won’t come all day.

This is it, I realize. This is how I’ll be spending Christmas from now on. Next year, I’ll have to prepare a bit more, maybe even bring a tent or something. I might as well start planning now, I reckon, because as I stare at the empty bench I’ve sat on for hours upon hours today, I know I’m stupid enough to keep my end of the promise no matter what, even if he won’t.

It was just a silly promise between teenagers. It wasn’t even meant romantically, it was more...a friendly invitation to spend a special day together. I can’t expect him to remember it, but that doesn’t meant I won’t.

It’s 11:57. The last three minutes feel like a long knife is being slid into my ribs, and it’s getting sharper as it glides in.

I hold my breath for the entire last minute. 11:59 passes the world with Helga Pataki staring out at the empty square without breathing, holding out for that last, tiny shred of hope.

Midnight.

It’s December 26th, and Arnold didn’t come.

“Well,” I say out loud, shocking myself with the lump of emotion in my throat. “It was bound to happen. You knew he wouldn’t come. You told yourself that all damn day. Stop crying, Helga. Stop crying. You--you have to do this again n-next y-year,” my voice is breaking as the weight of the experience finally crushes me.

I succumb to the tears. I cry, hiccupping sobs and long wails and squeals and low moans, snotty and wet-cheeked and grimacing. Oh it’s an ugly cry, for sure, one of the ugliest I’ve ever done, because I’m mad at myself. I let myself believe. That’s the gift I gave myself today. A stupid dream. A ridiculous premise, built on whispers and daydreams. The tears are shed in mourning for myself, but the screams are in outrage at the tears. They all echo out, lost in the gentle breeze as a fresh snow begins to stir in the air around me. A gust of freezing wind shocks the breath out of me, and I stop crying, sniffing and rubbing my cheeks. It’s too damn cold, and I spent enough time here today.

I check my phone. It’s seven after midnight. The first few hours of the day after Christmas are gone, and--

Crunch.

Something heavy startles a squeak out of me as it lands in the wet snow at my feet. A pair of...boots? I can’t even register what they are, I’m so confused, what is happening--

“You know,” he says from behind me, and I squeak again before gasping for air and slapping my mittens over my mouth. I sit as still as I can, shivering from the cold and the raw, outrageous excitement, unable to move. I can’t bear to look; I can’t bear to check.

“Those are a lot harder to find the second time around.” He chuckles, and walks into view.

Arnold.

Two long hot lines of tears streak down my cheeks spontaneously, and I’m holding my mouth in shock, looking up at the golden hair I’d seen earlier, on that godlike figure smiling down at me with a scruffy beard dusting his cheeks like gold dust. His cheeks are bright red, and I can’t tell if it’s from the cold or the that that he’s breathing hard -- he must have ran here.

I look down at the boots.

“Oh my--oh my god,” I gasp. Nanci Spumoni Snow Boots. How the hell did he even.

“I know I’m late,” he begins cautiously. “So I hope you didn’t wait here all day. I had to find these boots, so I was in every vintage store in Hillwood. Then when that didn’t work, I checked Amazon for local resellers. There’s a Spumoni museum two counties away, they had a pair in their collection by chance. Two hours drive both ways, but, Helga, I found ‘em.”

I shake my head in disbelief, I can’t believe I’m looking up at Arnold, I can’t believe he’s here, I can’t believe this is happening, that he brought those boots.

“What--how did you know?”

“Must have been a guardian angel,” he smiles, and I’m launching out of my seat and grabbing his neck in a fierce hug. I feel him exhale against my chest, my god, it’s him, it’s him, it’s him.

He laughs into my hair and I am holding my face against his neck and he pats the back of my head and my parka with a hand. I’m smiling and laughing and it’s him, it’s him, it’s him.

“Merry Christmas, Helga,” he says quietly against him.

I pull back and search his face, memorizing every detail. I never want to forget this moment, I never want it to end, and I never want to stop feeling this way. But, I have to tell him why I waited.

“Arnold,” I whisper into the few inches between our face. I feel his head pull towards mine, his eyes closing. Oh my god, he’s--

“I love you--” I manage to get out, before his mouth has crushed mine, and we kiss, we kiss, we kiss.